Worldwide optical transceiver markets are poised to achieve significant growth as the data in networks expands exponentially. As cloud systems proliferate and wireless data takes hold the efficiencies brought by high speed end-to-end optical networks are needed by carriers and in the data center.

According to Susan Eustis, lead author of the study, Optical transceivers are used to update the communications networks to manage broadband, to update the data center networks to make them manage traffic with higher speeds, to implement the backbone network for mobile communications. Everything is going mobile. This evolution is driven by mobile smart phones and tablets that provide universal connectivity. With 6 million cell phones in use and one million smart phones, soon to be 6 million smart phones, a lot of people have access to mobile communication. Video, cloud-based services, the internet, and machine-to-machine (M2M) provide mobile connectivity. All these devices are networked and drive significant traffic to the broadband network, stimulating the need for optical transceivers.

The Optical Transport Network (OTN) is a set of optical network elements connected by optical fiber links. Optical network elements provide transport, multiplexing, switching, management, supervision and survivability of communication channels. Carrier Ethernet is emerging. Optical transceiver, transmitter, receiver, and transponders support the implementation of the new network capacity.

Optical transceivers are evolving that are compliant with the 10Gbps Small Form Factor Pluggable (XFP) Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) specification for next generation optical transceiver devices. The 10Gbps optical transceiver can be used in telecom and datacom (SONET/SDH/DWDM/Gigabit Ethernet) applications to change an electrical signal into an optical signal and vice versa.

The 10Gbps optical transceiver is generally compliant with XENPAK Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) specification for next generation optical transceiver. A typical 1550nm chirp managed directly modulated laser is in a butterfly package and is used for 10G/200km. A solution for upgrading metro networks to 10Gbps is enabled by the transceivers. New components are more tolerant of dispersion. They provide a smaller footprint, lower power consumption, and cost savings for equipment vendors.

Optical transceiver market driving forces relate to the increased traffic coming from the Internet. The optical transceiver signal market is intensely competitive. There is increasing demand optical transceivers as communications markets grow in response to more use of smart phones and more Internet transmission of data. The market for network infrastructure equipment and for communications semiconductors offers attractive long-term growth:
There is expected to be tremendous investment in wireless cell tower base stations as the quantity of network traffic grows exponentially. Carriers worldwide are responding to the challenges brought by the massive increase in wireless data traffic. The advent of big data and exponential growth of data managed by the enterprise data centers is a significant market factor.

The global optical transceiver market will grow to $6.7 billion by 2019 driven by the availability of 100 Gbps devices and the vast increases in Internet data traffic.

Internet traffic growth comes from a variety of sources, not the least of which 1.6 billion new smart phones sold per year. Smartphone market growth is causing the need for investment in backhaul and cell tower technology.

Worldwide optical transport market revenues are forecast to grow through 2019. This is in the context of a world communications infrastructure that is changing. Technology is enabling interaction, innovation, and sharing of knowledge in new ways.